ROBOHELP 10: Auto-Generate a TOC

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About This Episode

Most of the time in RoboHelp 10, you will want to customize your TOC. Although it would be rare to want a TOC that exactly matches your project structure, you can instantly generate such a TOC as a starting point for your customization. Watch this 2.5 minute video to find out just how simple this process is.

RoboHelp 10 not only allows you to insert a Captivate video inside of a topic; you can actually create a new topic composed entirely of a Captivate video. Let Adobe Certified Expert @mattrsullivan show you how astonishingly simple the process is with this brief video.

RoboHelp 10 makes it extremely easy to import Captivate published project output. You can bring in either SWF files or HTML5. This brief video shows you how to insert a Captivate SWF file that is provided with RoboHelp 10 SW, so you can follow the steps to achieve the same results. Learn how to make your RoboHelp projects even more dynamic and compelling. Adobe Certified Expert, @mattrsullivan shows you how.

RoboHelp 10 has an easy to use facility for publishing to ePubs. Fortunately, there is also an ePub validator that will identify any unwanted errors before you upload your Opus Magnus to the iTunes store or other commercial site. This brief video shows you just how simple this process is to complete. Let Adobe certified expert and trainer, Matt R. Sullivan show you how!

RoboHelp 10 has easy to use tools for creating style sheets (CSS.) But what if you don't know what fonts a user will have in their browser for your published WebHelp or HTML project? That's where Fontsets come in. Font sets allow you to list fonts to use by order or your preference. In this brief video, you will see how to (a) create a font set with 3 fonts styles and (b) apply the font set (just like a font) to styles in the CSS. It's easier to do than it sounds and this 3 minute video will show you how.

Now that we've learned how to create a simple CSS for a single topic in a RoboHelp 10 project, watch this brief video to see how you can apply one CSS to ALL topics in a project. You can learn how in about 90 seconds.

RoboHelp 10 has simple, intuitive tools for creating CSS style sheets. This brief video shows how we take one topic (that has no real style) and swiftly create 3 basic styles. Afterwords, we apply Heading 1 and Heading 2 to give the topic some class. In less than 2 minutes, you can accomplish the same thing!

In addition to adding glossary terms to RoboHelp, you may select a glossary term that is an exact match for a phrase or term that appears throughout your project content. Once you have done, you can use the RoboHelp HotSpot Wizard to make that glossary term change formatting throughout your inline text, and also reveal the glossary definition as "expanding text" when clicked on. Let Adobe product evangelist Maxwell Hoffmann show you just how easy this is to accomplish in this very short video.

Glossaries can be creates quickly and effectively with RoboHelp 10. This brief video illustrates the simple basic components and steps of adding terms to a glossary and viewing the results in your published project.

It is easy to customize search in RoboHelp 10. This very brief video shows you how to add a custom search term that will allow your customers to search for a term or phrase that does not exist in visible content, yet go to the appropriate topic

RoboHelp 10 has the power to create "See Also" keywords that can be associated with multiple topics. Once you have accomplished this, you can use a wizard to create link controls that will navigate back to the topics associated with See Also. In this brief video, Adobe product evangelist Maxwell Hoffmann shows you how to create a simple pop-up link tied to 4 topics from a "See Also" keyword. You can do it too!

Most of the time in RoboHelp 10, you will want to customize your TOC. Although it would be rare to want a TOC that exactly matches your project structure, you can instantly generate such a TOC as a starting point for your customization. Watch this 2.5 minute video to find out just how simple this process is.

The main organizing component in your RoboHelp project is a project folder. This very brief video shows you the simple steps required to create a new folder for related topics, and how to populate it with new topics. You will notice that your custom TOC does *not* have to match the names or order of your folders. This is one more way that RoboHelp 10 makes your life easier.

In RoboHelp 10, Tables of Contents are primarily organized with "books." This brief video show you how easy it is to add a book for organizational purposes to an existing TOC. Then, we add 3 fresh topics to the book. In a flash, you'll understand the simple, underlying principles of project structure in RoboHelp 10.

This brief video gives a summary of 3 ways that you can collapse or expand content in published RoboHelp 10 content using DHTML. Discover how you can select key words or phrases, and then use a DHTML command to have content expand horizontally, or as a drop-down. You have the ability to populate the expanding area with (a) text (b) graphics or (c) text and graphics! Let Adobe Evangelist @maxwellhoffmann prove that you can do it too.

RoboHelp is very versatile when it comes to customizing the look and feel of your output. RoboHelp 10 comes with an appealing gallery of skins which you can select, preview and apply. Watch this brief video as Adobe Product Evangelist Maxwell Hoffmann walks you this this simple, sensible process. Naturally, skins can easily be customized, which we'll cover in a subsequent video

Linking FrameMaker files as source into RoboHelp projects is easy. However, you may hit a glitch if you decide to change fonts for lists; if the CSS style was based on formatting in FrameMaker, you may need an extra step to fix the number's font when you change fonts for list items. Adobe Certified Expert, Matt Sullivan, shows the simple steps required to correct this issue in a brief video. Bookmark this one, it is a great reference!

When you LINK FrameMaker source files into a RoboHelp project, you can set the single source layout to use the generated FrameMaker Table of Contents. This is an easy, 2-step process. Adobe Certified Expert Matt Sullivan walks you this logical process. Whenever your source FrameMaker book and TOC is updated, you can captured the updated TOC in your RoboHelp Project. This 90 second video shows you how.

Single source layouts in RoboHelp 10 enable you to publish to a variety of format. With the built-in eBook format, you can publish to ePub and Kindle at the same time. This brief video walks you through the choices you should make in ePub layout properties before publishing your first projects. Steps include how to choose a graphic image for your book cover. You will discover that the steps are short and extremely straight forward. For more detailed information, you should view the recorded webinar with our guest, Matt Sullivan, who covers the process of eBook publishing in greater detail at: http://adobe.ly/17YvOre

Our earlier video showed you how with RoboHelp 10 you can swiftly define and apply CBTs (Conditional Build Tags) to select portions of text you can exclude during publishing to create multiple versions of your project from one set of source topics. In this brief video, Product Evangelist @maxwellhoffmann shows you how to define a SSL (Single Source Layout) that as a CBT Expression associated with it. This allows you to publish to one or more HTML5 multi-screen outputs and automatically achieve the version of output you desire.

With RoboHelp 10 you can swiftly define and apply CBTs (Conditional Build Tags). This allows you to select portions of text you can exclude during publishing to create multiple versions of your project from one set of source topics. In this brief video, Product Evangelist @maxwellhoffmann shows you how to build and apply CBTs, then how to define Conditional Build Tag Expressions in the preview of your topics. Only a few simple, logical steps are required to achieve this.

Although RoboHelp has a variety of built-in keyboard short cuts. In this session we learn how to used 3 keyboard short cuts for defining Heading paragraph styles. We also learn how to define new keyboard shortcuts for other RoboHelp commands.

When the Link View displays a broken link, a simple set of tools within RoboHelp 10 will let you swiftly locate and repair the broken link. See how few steps are required in this brief video. You can do it too!

The Link View in RoboHelp is extremely helpful. Watch how renamed topics change automatically in real time, as demonstrated in the show Link View. This ensures that renamed topics don't "break" your RoboHelp project

Although RoboHelp has a friendly Design View and a code-based HTML view, some new users don't immediately discover how to view links in a particular topic. This brief video shows how easy it is to open this alternative view that will give you an instant chart that shows topics and URLs that are linked to your current topic. This can be extremely helpful for exploring how topics are related, or troubleshooting issues with broken links.

Many RoboHelp users are accustomed to the icons for creating a bulleted or numbered list, but haven't noticed the icon for multi-level lists. This very brief video shows just how easy it is to make several types of nested lists, with or without numbers. Go ahead and try it: you can do it too!

RoboHelp has a built-in screen capture facility, which will let you create high quality captures (with annotations) while authoring topics in our Help project. Watch this 5 minute video to find out just how simple RoboScreenCapture is to use. You can do it too!

One way to optimize search (SEO) results for your published RoboHelp projects is to make the most of images. This brief 3 minute video shows you (a) how to name videos with purpose-driven titles, (b) use Screen Tip settings to have relevant caption text appear during mouse hovers over an image and also (c) enter ALT Text, which is seen be Google and other search engines that index your context. The steps in RoboHelp 10 are extremely easy to do. Watch the video and let Product Evangelist @maxwellhoffmann show you how: you can do it too!

RoboHelp 10 has a variety of focused work spaces that come out of the box. An earlier video showed some steps on how to customize work spaces. This session covers brief but simple steps you can take to open up more room for editing and minimize the tools you are working with at any one time.

RoboHelp 10 allows you to make simple "See Also" references to other topics. Watch this 90 second video to see how you can accomplish this with a few mouse clicks and a simple drag n' drop gesture. You can do it too!

RoboHelp 10 has a convenient preview function to swiftly view your current topic. Some users don't notice the pull-down menu in the upper right hand corner that allows you to preview different versions of the content based on CBTs (Condition Build Tags.) This is a great "pre-flight" check to use before generating your final output.

Although there are several ways to preview published content w/in RoboHelp 10, one of the most convenient is Multiscreen Preview. In this 2.5 minute video, you can see how a very long headline could cause a problem for text wrap on a small mobile device screen. Multiscreen Preview enables you to preview 3 platforms at once; in this case iPhone, Kindle Fire and desktop.

Single source layouts in RoboHelp 10 let you publish to out-of-the box screen profiles and layouts for HTML5 as well as other formats. This very brief video shows how you can realistically preview your RoboHelp project results for iPad vs. iPhone before publishing the final project.

RoboHelp 10's Resource Manager lets teams collaborate in authoring by using shared resources. Text and graphics may be saved to a central location (e.g. SharePoint) and be pulled from a convenient panel right into your project content. This simple demo shows how easy it is to manage shared TEXT "snippets" that must be the same between all authors on your project. Watch this brief video to discover how "You can do it too!"

RoboHelp 10's Resource Manager lets teams collaborate in authoring by using shared resources. Text and graphics may be saved to a central location (e.g. SharePoint) and be pulled from a convenient panel right into your project content. A simple drag n' drop operation allows you to add potent content. An authorized team member may update an image or text just once, and it updates "everywhere." Watch this brief video to discover how "You can do it too!"

See how easy it is to create a new, custom TOC in RoboHelp. This product lets you have multiple TOCs to customize navigation for different audiences you publish Help for via Single Source layout. One set of source files can have different TOCs associated with specific types of output. It's easy and YOU can do it too!

FrameMaker 11 publishes sample files from DITA Open Toolkit "out-of-the-box." Using other DITA editors, it can required a lot of work to design style sheets that will publish OTK to rich PDF. FrameMaker 11 allows you to save DitaMaps to a FrameMaker book "with components." This means that a cover page, generated TOC, Index, List of Tables and List of Figures is automatically inserted in the correct locations. From that point you can swiftly publish to PDF with stunning results. Watch this video to see how you can achieve this with just a few mouse clicks.

See how easy it is to use image triggers on clip art in RoboHelp 10 to make connected images (like screen captures) appear or disappear. This simple technique can help make your Web or Tablet/mobile content more interactive and engaging for your users.

See how easy it is to insert *.swf or HTML5 output from CAPTIVATE projects into RoboHelp 10 files. This makes your content more engaging for your customers by letting them interact with videos that require choices.

In addition to making an entire image function as a hyperlink, RoboHelp 10 enables you to identify sections of an image or screen capture which you would like to link to different targets. Image maps allow you to draw a desired "hot zone" shape over a button, field, or section of graphic, and have hyperlink action to another section of the project, or even a URL. It's as easy as making a hyperlink; all you need is to know where to find the menu!

RoboHelp 10 bookmarks allow you to swiftly create destinations for hyperlinks that go below the topic level. Bookmarks are also useful for adding subtopic links in a TOC. Another use for bookmarks is to help a user instantly navigate to key portions of long tables or lists of information. You can create bookmarks in RoboHelp with a simple drag n' drop!

RoboHelp 11's support for DHTML gives you a powerful way to reduce your usage of screen real estate by stuffing screen captures or graphics under drop down menus. This allows the user to view one screen capture at a time, rather than scroll through several screens. The technique to create this effect is extremely easy; literally anyone can learn to do this.

See how easy it is to create powerful hyperlinks in RoboHelp 10 projects. You may create them over text or graphics either with a logical insert
command, or with an easy "drag n' drop" action from a side menu. You can do it too!

See a new twist on how 3 different ways to view and edit DITA or XML in FrameMaker 11 can be used. Traditional WYSIWYG (page) view still shows exact line breaks, headers/footers and full formatting, if you are going to publish to print or PDF. New AUTHOR VIEW shows only generically formatted content with no page breaks and symbolic indents; ideal for authors who need to focus on content that may go to multiple formats beyond print. Finally, get a glimpse of how powerful XML CODE VIEW can be with INTELLIPROMPT, suggesting legal elements or attributes while you are typing. These 3 views combined help make FrameMaker 11 a full-fledged DITA/XML authoring solution.

See how User Defined Variables (UDVs) in RoboHelp 10 allow you to create "instant update" instances of text or phrases for product names, address, UI gestures and more. Change the definition of one UDV and all instances update throughout your project. You can even insert UDFs into topic titles or boilerplate snippets. This powerful feature is extremely simple to use, as easy as editing and formatting normal text.

See how snippets in RoboHelp 10 give you a library of re-usable sections of text, UDVs (variables) or graphics. Save once, use many times. Edit the snippet once, and all instances change. You will be amazed at the simplicity of the user interface. You can even select and copy sections of repetitious text from your content (lists, cautions, etc.) and copy it into a new snippet!

FrameMaker allows you to tag and change table styles as easily as paragraph styles. There is a separate catalog to view and choose table styles, and a Table Designer to swiftly create or modify new styles. See how easy it is to (a) modify existing table styles, (b) "update all" to globally update all tables with the same style name and (c) import table styles from one document into others. There is much more to FrameMaker tables, which will be covered in more episodes in this show.

See how Tech Comm Suite allows RoboHelp to work seamlessly with Acrobat XI Pro to swiftly create PDF files for review in a variety of ways. You may choose RoboHelp content for review based on the TOC, content status (e.g. "ready for review"), or from a range of dates when content was changed. Once reviewers have made their comments via Free Acrobat Reader or in collaborative review via Sharepoint or Acrobat.com, all comments and annotations may be imported "in place" into the RoboHelp source files. Simple icons in the reviewer's pane make it a snap to accept or reject suggested changes.

See how easy it is to publish to HTML5 multiscreen from FrameMaker 11 via RoboHelp 10, in Tech Comm Suite 4, using the DEFAULT PROJECT that is supplied within FrameMaker. Stunning results in just a few mouse clicks.

The main organizing component in your RoboHelp project is a project folder. This very brief video shows you the simple steps required to create a new folder for related topics, and how to populate it with new topics. You will notice that your custom TOC does *not* have to match the names or order of your folders. This is one more way that RoboHelp 10 makes your life easier.

Your global audience has been vastly expanded with Adobe FrameMaker (2015 release): you may now publish content from a paragraph to book level in western left-to-right formats as well as right-to-left. This enables FrameMaker 2015 content in Arabic and Hebrew to support numbering, basic ligatures and diacritic content in the correct format.

New with RoboHelp (2015 Release): Application developers can use context sensitive help calls to access topics using Dynamic Content Filter technology. This further assures the end user can reach the most relevant content they need. One more way that RoboHelp (2015 Release) helps make your projects even more relevant with few steps and customization.

New with RoboHelp (2015 Release): now Content Categories are much easier to create and only generate one set of HTML5 files. Easily migrate current DUCC outputs and let users self-select relevant content by categories such as Roles, Location or Products.

New with RoboHelp (2015 Release), combine long and complex Conditional Build Expressions by giving them easy to remember, friendly names that are shorter and more logical. Now you can achieve advanced filtering results by using an easy, accessible custom library of named conditional build expressions.

New in RoboHelp (2015 Release), responsive HTML5 layouts now include Dynamic Content Filtering that lets the user self-select the content that is relevant to their search. New Social Widgets are supported "out of the box."

RoboHelp (2015 Release) enables you to focus on the work at hand by using new Contextual Tabs. For example, a Table Tab clusters all the logical commands commonly used for creating, editing and styling tables. Discover how many ways the Ribbon Interface rearranges itself depending on your insertion point of selected portion of the project.

RoboHelp (2015 Release) now allows you to create your own custom toolbar commands to reduce mouse clicks and work even more efficiently. Discover just how much time you can cut from day-to-day project work with this powerful new capability.

Adobe RoboHelp (2015 Release)'s new ribbon of familiar tools and commands makes your life much simpler. Logical grouping of tasks and workflows means getting the job done faster. You have a wide range of customization available, including choices of icons, color themes and a Quick Access Toolbar.

In addition to making an entire image function as a hyperlink, RoboHelp 10 enables you to identify sections of an image or screen capture which you would like to link to different targets. Image maps allow you to draw a desired "hot zone" shape over a button, field, or section of graphic, and have hyperlink action to another section of the project, or even a URL. It's as easy as making a hyperlink; all you need is to know where to find the menu!

RoboHelp 10 bookmarks allow you to swiftly create destinations for hyperlinks that go below the topic level. Bookmarks are also useful for adding subtopic links in a TOC. Another use for bookmarks is to help a user instantly navigate to key portions of long tables or lists of information. You can create bookmarks in RoboHelp with a simple drag n' drop!

RoboHelp 11's support for DHTML gives you a powerful way to reduce your usage of screen real estate by stuffing screen captures or graphics under drop down menus. This allows the user to view one screen capture at a time, rather than scroll through several screens. The technique to create this effect is extremely easy; literally anyone can learn to do this.